S.J. County housing affordability falling

San Joaquin County homes remain relatively affordable despite a sharp increase in home prices and higher mortgage interest rates, RealtyTrac is reporting today.

Reed Fujii

San Joaquin County homes remain relatively affordable despite a sharp increase in home prices and higher mortgage interest rates, RealtyTrac is reporting today.

The Irvine-based real estate data firm said the median price - half of all prices were higher and half lower - of San Joaquin County homes in the fourth quarter topped $190,000, up 26 percent from the more than $151,000 in the last three months of 2012. Together with higher mortgage and other costs, it pushed the average monthly payment to $906, up 38 percent from the year earlier.

That means a home buyer needed nearly $43,500 in annual income to qualify for a loan, compared with nearly $31,400 at the end of 2012. Still, housing remains affordable to most families in a county where the median household income is more than $50,700, RealtyTrac said.

"The takeaway for someone in San Joaquin County (is) homes are becoming less affordable very quickly, but they are still more affordable than in other parts of California or other parts of the country," RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said.

"If you have a job and plan to stay in San Joaquin County for more than five years, it's probably a good decision to buy at this point, because you will pay more if you are renting, and home prices are still relatively affordable."

RealtyTrac also reported the San Joaquin County current fair market rent for a three-bedroom home is $1,370 a month.

Some of the highest housing prices in the nation - and thus the counties with the highest minimum qualifying incomes for a median-priced home - were in the Bay Area, Realty-Trac reported.

Topping the list was San Francisco County, at $228,569 a year in household income; Marin County, $177,922; and San Mateo County, $170,284. No. 4 nationwide was Arlington County, Va., at $158,474 in annual household income, followed by Santa Clara County at $149,389.

Rising prices and declining affordability were the general rule nationwide.

On average in the 325 U.S. counties included in the analysis, the estimated monthly house payment for a median-priced three-bedroom home purchased in the fourth quarter - including mortgage, insurance, taxes and maintenance, and subtracting the estimated income tax benefit - increased an average of 21 percent from the year before.

The higher payments were due to an average 10 percent rise in median home prices combined with a 33 percent increase in the interest rate for an average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage

Investors and other cash buyers whose home-buying practices are not constrained by personal income are contributing to the affordability issue, Blomquist said.

"The monthly cost of owning a home is still less than renting in the majority of markets, but the cost of financed homeownership is becoming dangerously disconnected with still-stagnant median incomes," he said.